


guess it's hard to fall

by hepaticas



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Community: tsn_kinkmeme, Dubious Consent, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 00:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1408582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hepaticas/pseuds/hepaticas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark discovers he's an omega two years after he kicks Eduardo out of the company. He takes suppressors, keeps it on the down low, uses Sean as his emergency alpha whenever necessary, and it all goes fine until the first time Eduardo shows up for a shareholders meeting. Turns out suppressors don't work on soulmates. Oops. || Originally written for and (partially) posted on the kinkmeme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. when your sidewalk ends

**Author's Note:**

> Yooo, okay, so if you read the first half-ish of this on the kinkmeme, you may notice that there have been a couple changes. Nothing big, mostly I just edited some mess up on years and ages that I mentioned in the beginning and also there was a mention of knotting in this fic when I posted it on the kinkmeme, which I have removed, because hey, turns out I didn't actually want to write that and the mention felt like a promise of things to come. You're welcome if you're not into that and I'm sorry if you are. title and chapter titles taken from sidewalk ends by jesse thomas. Ok, bye. Kisses.
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT, 2/28/16: YOU GUYS!!! I would really, really appreciate if people would stop coming at me with mildly hostile comments and messages about this fic? I understand I was lazy with the ending. I was in kind of a bad place when I was trying to finish it, and I wanted it to be over. I'm sorry people don't like it. I'm starting to get very serious anxiety about the things y'all are taking it upon yourselves to say to me. Please, please chill. Please. Literally begging.

When Mark is fifteen, he and the rest of his classmates are subjected to a painfully awkward week of sex ed lessons. The course takes place during the period where they would usually have gym, and while at first everyone is just grateful for a week away from the smelly locker rooms, they soon find out that struggling to dress down as quickly as possible while keeping yourself as covered as you can is actually more fun than listening to your sweaty, balding gym teacher talk about sex.

At fifteen, the students already know most of what they’re being taught. Hell, Mark has seen porn more educational than the first few lessons. The highlight of the whole awful thing comes during the last two days, when they cover the basics of the Alpha Beta Omega System. The ABOS is still seriously controversial – they only started teaching it in school this year, and the students had to take home three page long permission slips in order to attend the last two lessons of the sex ed course. It’s ridiculous, Mark thinks; people have been acknowledging the ABOS for years, but they’re still afraid to teach their kids about it.

The teacher covers only what has been deemed necessary by the school, which is to say, not very much at all. Still, Mark listens intently to all of it, along with everyone else in the class. The last two lessons are the only two in which no one giggles into their hands or shouts smart ass remarks at the teacher.

When Mark is sixteen, a boy in his year, Jordan Walsh, claims that he is an alpha. Jordan is a big lumbering idiot, in Mark’s opinion, and the school as a whole decides that Jordan is just telling stories to make himself look cool – that is, until Clara Cochran comes to school while in heat and Jordan turns purple with the effort of not jumping her in class. They are both sent home early and a week later Clara awkwardly apologizes to Jordan and says she’d never have come to school if she’d known – it was the first time she’d gone into heat, and she’d thought she was just feeling sort of horny because her period was coming soon or something.

These two events are the only experiences Mark will have with the ABOS until he is twenty-two. By the time college comes around, Mark assumes that he is nothing but your run of the mill, ordinary beta. He figures if he is anything other than that, he is an alpha, but he never notices anything when other students complain about how they are perpetually horny because of the stench of the two omegas one floor up from his dorm, whose cycles have synced up, so he eventually concludes that the ABOS really doesn’t affect him at all. He can’t say he’s sorry, really. It seems like it would be an awful distraction.

He does, occasionally, find himself staring at Eduardo for a little longer than is probably normal, wondering idly about how he would taste, or how his dick would feel buried between his thighs. He writes this off as nothing more than the wanderings of a sleep deprived, horny college student, and comforts himself with the thought that he is not the first person to have had such thoughts about their best friend.

In 2004, Mark sits in a chair in the shiny new Facebook offices and watches Eduardo march out, escorted by security, and he is sorry only for the loss of his friend, not the loss of a potential mate. Over the years, he will think that this confirms what he’d always thought – that his wonderings had been nothing more than that: wonderings.

He will be wrong.

//

In March of 2006, Mark wakes up with a wet spot on his mattress and a hard-on so intense it’s almost painful. Just the feeling of his boxers brushing against it when he sits up makes him moan and he is pretty sure if he doesn’t get fucked pronto, something really, really bad is going to happen. Mark has had morning wood before, but never _this_. His first thought is _I wonder if that big body builder next door is home_ and his second thought is _oh, shit_ , because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happening right now.

So apparently he’s not the boring old beta he’d always thought he was. Apparently he is actually a very late blooming omega. This would be fine, except that the world is still a very silly place, where omegas are still laughed right out of high ranking positions. Mark is CEO, bitch, and he intends to stay that way – so this whole heat thing is going to have to stay on the down low. Only, he doesn’t really know how to accomplish that, and he realizes with a jolt that as he’s been thinking all this, he’s also started fingering himself absentmindedly, and okay, he needs help.

That said, he’s not really sure who to call. Chris would help, because Chris is scarily efficient, but Chris is visiting his family in North Carolina, so that’s out. Dustin would be useless, because he’d be too busy laughing, and Mark would literally never hear anything but jokes again, and Mark’s assistant, Sue Ellen, is a forty five year old catholic woman who Mark would never be able to look in the eye again after calling her about a thing like this. Which really only leaves one person: Sean.

So he sends Sean a text, _need you to come to my place asap,_ and Sean replies, _fuck you it’s early and I’m hungover_ , and then Mark threatens to fucking murder him, this is not a fucking joke, and maybe Mark’s urgency comes across in the text, or maybe Sean senses something is wrong because of the mass of awful typos that make it in due to the fact that Mark is on all fours and fucking himself with two fingers when he writes it, because Sean just says, _okay, I’ll be there in ten_ , and nothing else.

//

It takes Sean twenty minutes, actually, not ten, and when he gets there, Mark is lying face down on his sofa with his hands under the cushion. He’d put them there in an attempt to stop himself from jerking off, but he started casually rubbing himself off against a cushion after just five minutes and now he’s sort of given up on stopping.

Sean doesn’t knock, just walks right in, starts yelling Mark’s name the second he shuts the door behind him. When Mark finally looks up, Sean is standing in the doorway of his living room, gripping the doorframe with white knuckles and looking a little crazed. “You neglected to inform me of the nature of your problem,” Sean says through clenched teeth.

Mark looks Sean up and down, ignoring the voice in the back of his head whispering that if Sean is here, he can forget the body builder next door, and thinks, _Sean is an alpha_ , and then curses himself for not thinking of that. “Shut the fuck up and help me,” Mark snaps, and Sean’s entire body twitches towards him, but he doesn’t actually move from his spot in the doorway.

“What would you like me to do?” Sean asks, and Mark narrows his eyes.

“I don’t _know_ ,” he says. “I need – I need – I have to go to work. I can’t go to work like this. People can’t _know_.”

Sean raises his eyebrows, but he seems to understand – almost. “So just do whatever you’ve been doing,” he says. “It seems to have worked so far. I didn’t even know about this.”

“I haven’t been doing anything,” Mark says, aware that he turns a little bit red as he says it. “I didn’t know about it either until I woke up this morning.”

Sean’s expression of understanding is almost comical. “Oh,” he says. “Okay, so – suppressors? You need suppressors. And you can’t go out like this, not if you want to keep it a secret, so –“

“So I need you to get them, yes,” Mark snarls, irritated that it’s taken this long for Sean to get with the picture.

“Alright, alright, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Sean says. He hesitates a moment and then slowly starts to back out of the door way. “I’ll be back soon,” he says. “And Mark, lock the fucking door when I leave. I could smell you from two blocks away.”

//

So Sean leaves and Mark drags himself off the couch and locks the door behind him, and then he goes to take a cold shower, but just ends up jerking off under the water. When Sean finally gets back an hour later, Mark is sitting on the couch, trying to get some work done on his laptop, but only managing to be really, really annoyed by the fact that he just came in the shower twenty minutes ago and he’s already hard and horny again. Sean lets himself in with the spare key that Mark keeps in the flower pot his sister gave him two years ago – the plant in it is long dead, but he can’t be bothered to do anything about it – and comes into the living room holding a bulky paper bag.

“How you doin’, buddy?” He asks, which is probably the most patronizing thing Mark has ever heard Sean say, and that’s saying something.

“How do you think?” Mark snaps. He’s frustrated and Sean’s very presence is making him itch, making him want to grab Sean and drag him into the bedroom and – best to stop that train of thought right there, really. “Did you get them?” He asks, and Sean nods and reluctantly comes further into the room. He takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table, carefully maintaining the maximum amount of distance from Mark, and then opens his paper bag and pulls out three yellow packages, each about an inch thick and the size of a credit card.

“Suppressors,” Sean says, flipping one of them open to show Mark the pills inside. He tosses the packs at Mark, because he can’t reach to hand them over and is clearly not willing to come any closer. “Take one a day for the rest of forever and seriously, don’t skip a day. Skipping days is bad.”

Mark nods, though he’s hardly listening as he pops one of the pills out and takes it dry. He eyes the bag in Sean’s lap, still clearly very full. “What else is in there?” He asks, eyebrows raised slightly.

“More pills,” Sean says, and then, hiding a smirk, “And, well – the pills are going to take a couple of days to kick in, so – I thought you might want a little something.”

And then he reaches into the bag and pulls out the biggest dildo Mark has ever seen.

“Get the fuck out of my house,” Mark says. But he takes the dildo, and ignores the sound of Sean laughing all the way to the door.

//

Mark calls in sick for two days, because if he wants to keep this a secret, he can’t really go in to the office with a perpetual boner and the desire to fuck anyone who looks at him the right way. He also checks into a hotel, because his neighbors know who he is, and he doesn’t need one of them going to the tabloids and saying, ‘I can smell Mark Zuckerberg’s sex hormones from my backyard.’

So he spends two days sitting in a hotel room with his laptop and his dildo and a steady stream of room service and on the third day he calls Sean and says, in lieu of a hello, “I need you to come smell me.”

There’s a pause and then Sean says, “I’m sorry?”

“I need you to come smell me,” Mark repeats, because really, what’s so hard to understand about that? “I need to know if I can go to work yet, or if my CFO is going to jump me in the elevator.”

“Is Davis an alpha?” Sean asks, missing the point entirely.

“I don’t know,” Mark says. “That was just an example. Can you just come over here and smell me, please? I feel like the pills are working, but I need to be sure.”

“Fine,” Sean says. “I’ll be there soon. You better be wearing pants.”

He hangs up. Mark tosses his phone aside and goes to put pants on.

Sean arrives at the door to Mark’s hotel room fifteen minutes later, looks Mark up and down and announces, “I don’t want to have sex with you at all.”

“Wonderful,” Mark says, grabbing his laptop and his hoodie and marching out of the room. “I’m going to work.”

“Hey, Mark,” Sean calls after him, “Can I use your room? I don’t want to have sex with you, but there’s a girl downstairs at the reception desk that I feel very differently about.”

//

Mark doesn’t tell anyone about his newly discovered omega-status, because he doesn’t think he needs to – Sean disagrees, which, whatever, Sean thinks doing coke off an intern is a good idea. He spends three months taking his pills religiously and generally behaving very suspiciously in the name of secret keeping.

This backfires in July, when Dustin figures it out. They’re in Mark’s office, Mark working, Dustin chattering and Chris pretending to work while actually listening to Dustin; Mark has just told Dustin to go away for the third time when Dustin turns to Chris and makes a crack about how Mark is just grumpy because it’s his time of the month.

Mark’s head snaps up and instead of just telling Dustin to shut up, like he usually would, he says, “Don’t be an idiot, Dustin, I don’t have a time of the month, if you’re going to make jokes they should at least make sense!” Too late, he realizes that Dustin is watching him carefully, clearly judging his reaction, and there is a smile slowly spreading across his face. “I mean,” Mark fumbles, “Ha. Good one.”

“I knew it,” Dustin says. “I knew it. Chris, didn’t I tell you I knew it? I knew it.”

Mark sighs heavily. “How did you figure it out?” He asks, so he knows what to avoid in the future.

“Come on,” Dustin says. “We’ve known you for years. You think we wouldn’t notice you going all bizarre-o for three months? Well, more bizarre-o than usual, I mean.”

Mark pulls a – very mature, thank you – face, which Dustin returns. “You should have just told us,” Chris says.

“It has to be a secret,” Mark says. “You can’t tell anyone else. I don’t want it getting out.”

Chris and Dustin both frown at him, but they must understand, because they also nod. And that’s that. They don’t talk about it again.

In fact, Mark hardly talks about it at all, to anyone – at least, not until he has to. Six months after his initial discovery, the site is attacked, and Mark spends forty-eight straight hours at work, and it’s only as he’s pulling into his driveway that he realizes he missed his pill that morning. He shrugs it off, because it’s only one day. He takes the missed pill before bed, only to wake up gasping and drenched in sweat two hours later.

The pent up hormones hit him like a punch to the gut, so intense he can hardly draw breath. He gets a hand around his cock and pulls a couple of times, but it’s simultaneously too much and not enough and he gives up, panting and clawing at the sheets in frustration. He understands now why Sean warned him against missing pills – this is excruciating. The old dildo Sean gave him is in his nightstand, but he has a feeling that this isn’t something he can take care of himself. Not this time.

So he calls Sean. It takes him three tries to dial the number correctly, because his hands are trembling, but he manages, finally, and Sean picks up after three rings, sleepy and obviously a little bit drunk, says, “Man, it’s four in the morning, what do you want?”

“Sean,” Mark gasps, clawing at his mattress distractedly with one hand. “I need your help.”

“What’s wrong?” Sean asks, suddenly sounding very alert, which says something about how Mark probably sounds, he thinks.

“I missed a day – a pill, I missed a pill. I thought I took it soon enough, but I didn’t.” He tries to find the will power to be embarrassed by how desperate he sounds, but he can’t. All he can feel is need and want and there’s no room for anything else.

“Shit,” Sean says, and then, “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Sean,” Mark says. “ _I need your help_.”

“Oh,” Sean says when he gets it, more an exhale than actual word. “Are you sure?”

Mark can only make a wordless, frustrated sound in response. Sean makes a sound that might be a laugh, which Mark will have to remember to be angry about when he can think about anything other than his feverish need to be fucked. “I’m on my way,” Sean says, and then he hangs up.

//

Sean wastes no time on niceties. He marches into Mark’s bedroom, looks Mark up and down where he’s lying on the bed, fucking himself with two fingers like he can’t even help it, makes a sound that might actually be called a growl and says, “Roll over.”

Mark rolls over. He doesn’t even pause to be annoyed at being ordered around, he just does it, because Sean’s presence alone has eased the ferocious desire, like his body knows what’s coming. Sean’s hands are on his hips within seconds, pulling him up onto all fours, his fingertips pressing into Mark’s skin just this side of too hard. He lets go and trails one hand over the bumps of Mark’s spine and Mark shudders and tips forward until his head hits his pillow.

“Are you sure?” Sean asks again, his voice tight and controlled and Mark whines in response, pushes his ass up in a way that will be embarrassing later, he’s sure.

Sean doesn’t ask again. Mark hears his belt being undone and then there’s some rustling as his pants come off. “Condom?” he asks and Mark manages to wave a hand vaguely in the direction of his nightstand. Sean leans over him to reach, which means his cock presses hard and insisting against Mark’s back and Mark whines again, presses back against him. “Stop that,” Sean says gruffly, reaching back with one hand to still Mark’s hips, and then he leans back again and Mark hears him opening the condom. “You still have that fucking dildo,” Sean says. “It just wouldn’t do it for it you, huh? You need a fucking cock to get off, Mark?” His voice is low, barely more than a whisper and it would feel like a taunt if it wasn’t one hundred percent true.

“Yeah,” Mark says, “Yeah, Sean, _come on_ ,” because he’s really not above begging at this point, and Sean hums once and then, without further ado, he pushes into Mark in one smooth motion. “Shit,” Mark says, and Sean hums again and starts fucking him in earnest, setting a quick pace that leaves Mark unable to do anything but gasp, his breathing coming shallow and so loud it’s almost a groan. Sean slides a hand up his back and pushes him forward, changing the angle just slightly and Mark moans and digs his fingers into his pillow.

It is over embarrassingly quickly, for both of them. They come at the same time; Sean leans forward and wraps his arms around Mark’s torso, holding him up as Mark shakes his way through an orgasm, and then, when Mark finally stops trembling and comes around enough to hold himself up, he pulls out, ties the condom off and tosses it aside and flops onto his back on Mark’s bed. Mark thinks the speed must have been his intent, because he looks quite pleased with himself, and not just in an I-Just-Got-Laid sort of way.

Mark slowly droops forward, unable to remain up on all fours because his whole body seems to have turned to jelly. He collapses on his stomach, wraps his arms around his pillow and is quiet for a long moment, catching his breath. He still feels needy and wanting, but it’s nothing compared to what it was, and he can sleep now, he thinks. Sean is wiggling in place, getting comfortable; he clearly has no intention of leaving, and Mark would have a problem with that if he weren’t so tired. As it is, he is too exhausted to try and kick him out, so he just settles into his pillow, closes his eyes and mutters, “We don’t speak of this.”

Sean snorts and Mark’s eyes are closed but he thinks he feels a hand brushing hair off his forehead. “My lips are sealed,” Sean says, and usually Mark would never trust those words from Sean’s lips, but this time he believes him.

He manages, just before he falls asleep, to open his eyes one last time and squint at Sean in the dark. “Sean,” he mumbles, half into his pillow in the hopes that Sean won’t hear. “Thanks.”

//

Mark sleeps for twelve hours and when he wakes up, Sean is gone. This is not surprising. He goes to work and ignores Dustin chattering animatedly at him and when he’s been in the office for about an hour, Sean comes in, drops into the chair in front of Mark’s desk and declares that he’s thinking about taking karate lessons, because ‘ladies love that shit.’ “What do you think?” He asks, and Mark really couldn’t give a shit, but he recognizes this for what it is, a way to avoid any morning-after awkwardness, and so instead of brushing Sean off he shrugs and says,

“I don’t know why you’d bother; it’s not like you’d have any qualms with lying and saying you have a black belt.”

“Yeah,” Sean says. “That’s probably true,” and then he launches into a story about the girl he slept with one time who actually did have a black belt and Mark has heard this story a million times so he tunes it out.

He brings a pack of pills to work after that, just in case, but he’s busy and sometimes he still misses days. It’s alright though. Sean is always just a call away and, as much as Sean can be, well… Sean, he is a good friend, and he never makes a big deal of it. He just helps Mark out when he needs it and then moves on.

All in all, Mark does pretty well with the whole omega thing. It has hardly any impact on his life at all. He maybe, sometimes, hears employees talking about mates and bonds and, maybe, sometimes… wonders, but it’s not really a big deal. It’s fine, and Facebook is doing well, and he’s succeeding at keeping the whole thing a secret.

Until one day it comes out in a pretty spectacular way.

//

Eduardo’s school does not teach its students about the ABOS, but Eduardo grows up knowing all about it anyway. When he is eight, a boy in his class insults someone by calling them an omega, a trend that Eduardo will see a lot growing up and never quite understand. He goes home that day and, at the dinner table, inquires politely in Portuguese about what an omega is. His parents look at each other and then his father asks where he heard that, and Eduardo tells him, and his father says, in English, “We will talk about this after dinner in my office, Edu,” and Eduardo frowns, but nods. His mother is still learning English, so she can’t have understood what his father said, but she doesn’t ask, either, just smiles and asks if Eduardo would like more juice.

After dinner, his father sits him down in one of the big leather chairs in his office, the ones that are too big for Eduardo and make him feel like he is in a giant’s house, and he tells Eduardo three things. First, he says, Eduardo is an alpha. All Saverin men are, he says, and Eduardo is no different. Second, alphas are not better or worse than betas and omegas, no matter what anyone says. And third, it is the alpha’s job to care for their partner, whoever it may be. He explains only the bare bones of the ABOS during this conversation, because Eduardo is young and still feigns gagging at the idea of kissing people other than his parents, but as the years pass, they will have many conversations about it and his father will explain more and more.

Eduardo is taught about bonds and soul mates and the purpose of the ABOS. The ABOS is outdated, his father tells him, a remnant of a time when the human race needed to reproduce constantly. Once, he says, the main goal of the alpha was to impregnate as many partners as they could. Now their main goal is pleasure. He teaches Eduardo about the importance of a consenting partner – _in heat_ does not mean _yes_ , not anymore, he says, over and over – and he teaches him to be careful when sleeping with omegas, lest he form an unwanted bond. “Most bonds can be broken, Edu,” his father says, “but it is a messy, unpleasant thing, and it will hurt both partners.”

Eduardo nods and takes all this to heart, but there is one thing that fascinates him above all the rest. _Most_ bonds, his father had said, _most_ bonds can be broken, but there is one that can’t. Eduardo is entranced by the idea of soul mates – real, true soul mates, someone out there in the world who is his perfect match. By the time he goes away to college and meets Mark, the concept has become something of an ideal to him, has filled him up like a balloon expanding in his chest, leaving a hollow spot that he keeps trying to fill. He’s looking for his mate around every corner and sometimes, sometimes, he looks at Mark and thinks he’s found him.

In 2004, he walks out of the Facebook offices, flanked by security guards, and he thinks maybe he doesn’t have a mate. He can’t have, because it isn’t Mark, and if it isn’t Mark, it isn’t anyone.

Years later, he gently wakes the woman sleeping next to him, a sweet looking blonde omega who lives above him and sometimes knocks on his door in the middle of the night, smelling of hormones and strawberry shampoo, and says, “Can I borrow some sugar, neighbor?”

He thinks that if he was going to find a mate, someone meant for him who was not Mark, it would be her, but when she stirs and blinks herself awake, he feels nothing but a sort of vague, friendly fondness. “I have to go,” he says, “I’ve gotta catch a flight to the states. You can stay as long as you like, but lock up when you leave.” She smiles, and nods, and gives him a little peck on the cheek, and he doesn’t even have it in him to be disappointed that his bitter, broken-hearted younger self still hasn’t been proved wrong.

//

It’s the first day of the annual shareholders meeting, or, as Mark calls it, Hell Week. He calls it this not because shareholders meetings themselves are particularly unpleasant or anything like that, but because they always inevitably mean he is going to have to spend a week going out for drinks and brunch and golf with various boring old business associates. He’s sitting at the head of the table in the conference room, swiveling back in forth in his chair and chewing an enormous wad of wintergreen gum--practically force fed to him by Chris, because _holy shit, Mark, when did you last brush your teeth, you breath smells like sugar and death_ —and waiting, sort of impatiently, for everyone to arrive so they can get this over with. Sean is standing a few feet to his left, arms folded, talking to Dustin, and Chris is sitting in his designated seat, fidgeting with his wedding ring and looking bored.  There are seven shareholders in the conference room and one of them starts to say something to Mark, but he doesn’t catch it, because that is when Mark’s entire world turns on its ear.

This is what happens:

Eduardo walks into the conference room, smiles at Chris, waves at Dustin, and nods politely at Mark. He crosses the room with the same quick, confident strides as always, undoes a button on his suit jacket and sits down.

This is all it takes. It is the first time Mark has been in a room with Eduardo since the depositions, the first time since he started going into heat, and just the sight of Eduardo makes his mouth go dry, makes something coil tight in his belly, makes him grip the arms of his chair tightly just to keep from leaping out of it. The heads of seven shareholders swivel to look at Mark, all of them wearing the same wide eyed, verging-on-hungry look, and Mark thinks, _shit, cat’s out of the bag_. He glances, panicked at Sean, who is frozen mid-gesture, staring at Mark and looking sort of unsurprised and a little bit sad. Dustin and Chris keep looking from face to face, clearly confused.

Mark turns back to look at the room full of shareholders, opens and closes his mouth a few times, searching for something to say. He cannot make himself look at Eduardo, doesn’t want to know if he’s feeling this, too, or if, even worse, he isn’t. Words fail him, but thankfully, one of the shareholders saves him the trouble of speaking. “Is this some kind of joke?” She snaps.

He starts to answer even though he doesn’t really know what to say. It turns out it doesn’t matter, because before he can say anything, Eduardo’s voice surprises him into looking at him, finally. He’s sitting up very straight, his body angled towards Mark, but his shoulder’s straining backwards, like he’s trying to fight it. His expression is a strange mix of shock and anger, and when he speaks, his voice is barely more than a growl. “It had fucking better be,” he says, and Mark shrinks back in his chair slightly.

There’s a pause and then Sean breaks the silence by laughing loudly and saying, “Gotchya, didn’t we? You should see your faces. We’re starting a new tradition of Shareholder Meeting Pranks. Great, don’t you think? How about a round of applause for our actors, Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin?” No one claps. Sean doesn’t even blink. “No? You didn’t like that? Alright, our bad. Sorry. If you don’t mind, I’ll just take Mark and help him get all that pheromone perfume off so we can get on with the meeting. Excuse us.”

And then he grabs the back of Mark’s chair and wheels him right out of the conference room. Mark cranes his neck around on the way out, just in time to see Eduardo stand up stiffly and follow them.

//

Mark doesn’t say a word as Sean pushes his chair through the Facebook offices. He pointedly ignores the way that several of his employees whip around to stare at him, shocked, and focuses instead on the sharp, even footsteps he can hear behind him. He knows they are Eduardo’s footsteps like he knows his own name, and he doesn’t know why he knows it, doesn’t know why he feels like his heart is trying to tear its way out of his chest. Sean pushes him into his office and then stops, hesitates a moment before carefully navigating Mark’s chair through the rest of the office furniture until he is behind the desk. It’s only once he’s got Mark there safely that he lets go of the chair, mutters a few choice curses and then grabs Mark’s actual desk chair and throws himself into it like he is a character in a soap opera who’s just found out they’re pregnant with their cousin’s child.

“You left the door open,” Mark says, conversationally, staring at a spot behind Sean’s ear and trying to ignore the fact that he’s hard in his jeans and he doesn’t know why, because he took his pill this morning, he did, he remembers. No sooner has he said it than his office door slams hard enough to rattle a coffee mug on his desk and he looks up to find Eduardo standing in front of it, looking simultaneously angry and vulnerable.

“You’re an omega,” he says, and it’s not a question, but Mark nods anyway and that’s when it hits him that he’s just been outed to the entirety of his company and all its shareholders.

“Shit,” he says. He manages, then, to tear his gaze away from Eduardo – which is harder than it should be, he thinks, because he’s been in the presence of alphas while in heat before and never had that problem – and looks at Sean, who is staring at the ceiling like it is the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. “Why did you give me defective pills, asshole?” Mark snaps, because he can’t think of any other reason why he suddenly became horribly, desperately horny in the middle of a shareholders meeting.

(It’s more than just horny, actually, there something else, too, but he’s trying not to think about that like he’s trying not to think about the fact that he doesn’t want to jump Sean or any of the other alphas who aren’t Eduardo, because none of that makes sense.)

“You’ve been taking suppressors?” Eduardo asks and Mark can’t decipher his tone and he doesn’t want to answer, but he does anyway, turns like he can’t help it.

“Yeah,” he says. Eduardo doesn’t say anything else, just frowns at him, so Mark turns back to give Sean a pointed look.

“I didn’t,” Sean says with a heavy sigh, slowly lifting his head to look at Mark. “I gave you the same pills as always.”

“Then why aren’t they working?” Mark snaps at the same time that Eduardo asks, “How long have you been taking them?”

“I don’t know,” Mark says. “Years.” He opens his mouth to continue interrogating Sean, but Eduardo keeps talking.

“You weren’t taking them at Harvard,” Eduardo says, not a question, but Mark shakes his head anyway.

“No. I didn’t – I wasn’t - It came late,” he says, shrugging. “But I’ve always been able to hide it, which is why it doesn’t make sense that it’s coming out now.” The last is addressed to Sean, who sighs again and says,

“Mark, it’s more complicated than that. It’s – the suppressors block the hormones that cause you to go into heat, but the ABOS is more complicated than that. There are some things you can’t block. There are… other factors.”

“What do you mean, ‘other factors’?” Mark snaps. Sean’s lips curve up into a wry smile and he lifts one hand slowly and gestures at Eduardo.

“Other factors,” he says and when Mark looks at Eduardo, he has gone very pale.

“Oh my God,” Eduardo says and then his legs start to shake and he has to sit down in the chair across from Mark’s desk and put his head between his knees.

“I don’t understand,” Mark says through his teeth. “What is going on?”

“Suppressors can’t block the bond, Mark,” Sean says, irritated, like Mark is being deliberately obtuse, which maybe he is, but this is really a lot to take in, so you can’t blame him. “Your average, run of the mill alpha won’t have any effect when you’re on them, but an alpha you’re _connected_ to…”

He looks at Mark like he’s expecting him to make some great leap, but Mark just stares at him and then shakes his head. “No. I’m connected to you and I don’t start throwing out pheromones whenever I see _you._ ”

“Mark,” Eduardo says and Mark doesn’t want to turn and look at him, but he can’t resist and so he does, grips the arms of his chair tighter when he sees that Eduardo is staring at him, wide eyed and resigned, the line of his brow pulled together over his eyes. “He’s not talking about _friendship._ Suppressors can’t block the bond. Suppressors can’t block _soulmates._ ”

Mark stares at him and he wants to disagree, wants to say that this must be something else, but he knows that it’s not, knows it the same way that he knows Eduardo’s heart is beating faster than normal, knows it like he’s got a finger on his pulse when in reality they are in opposite sides of the room. The word ‘soulmates’ sits heavy in his stomach and in the tips of his fingers, on every inch of his skin that aches to be pressed against Eduardo and now that it’s been said aloud he knows, too, that he can’t argue, because it’s like someone has tied him to Eduardo with a rope that can’t be cut, whether he wants it to be or not. He looks at Eduardo and Eduardo looks back and Mark wonders what this must be like for him, because Mark never stopped caring for Eduardo, but he can put a finger on the exact moment that Eduardo started hating him.

“We’re going to have to cancel the meeting,” he says without looking away from Eduardo. “And Chris. Chris is going to have to put out a statement. I –“

Sean puts a hand on his shoulder and Mark takes a moment to marvel at his complete lack of interest in him in spite of the fact that he has that too familiar ache in his belly telling him that he wants, wants, needs to be fucked. “I’ll take care of it,” Sean says. “You two should… go. Together you’re sending out really a lot of hormones and it’s... well, I can’t speak for anyone else in the building, but if you don’t get the fuck out of here, my dick might explode.”

Mark glances at Sean and notices for the first time that his forehead is shiny with sweat and the hand that is not touching Mark is clenched tightly in a fist. He looks back at Eduardo in time to see his eyes flick from Sean’s hand on Mark’s shoulder to Sean’s face and then hesitate, like maybe Sean’s dick exploding is something he’d like to see. After a moment though he lets out a long sigh and says, “Fine. Let’s go, Mark. I’ll drive.”

//

The drive from Facebook to Eduardo’s hotel is short and tense. They don’t go to Mark’s house because that’s a longer drive, and Eduardo admits, reluctantly and through clenched teeth, that he’s not sure he can focus long enough to drive there without getting them killed. Mark feels a little thrill of excitement at that, the idea that he can distract Eduardo just with his presence, and he doesn’t know why, because it’s not like he’s actually doing anything – it’s just chemicals, just his body projecting something that Eduardo’s body responds to, nothing more. Still, it makes his fingers twitch towards Eduardo before he sits on them to keep from doing something inadvisable and he nods without any further argument, says, “Yeah, okay, your hotel is fine.”

Eduardo’s hotel room is immaculate, the only sign that he’s been there the line of neatly pressed suits Mark can see hanging in the open closet. The bed is made, with mints on the pillows, and there’s a little card on the corner of the bedside table encouraging Eduardo to save water by hanging up towels that he plans to reuse. Eduardo stands in the middle of the room with his back to Mark, his fingers twitching at his side and Mark hesitates by the closed door and says, “So, I guess we should… talk.”

Eduardo barks out a laugh and then, abruptly, he is in Mark’s space, pressing him back against the door and shoving a hand up under his t-shirt. The simple touch of Eduardo’s hand on Mark’s too hot skin makes him shudder and arch forward into Eduardo, makes his head thump back against the door, and Eduardo smiles, somehow looking both furious and fond, and says, “You want to _talk_?”

“No,” Mark breathes. “No, I don’t – I – I said we _should.”_ He realizes he’s closed his eyes, so he opens them again to find Eduardo staring down at him, his eyes huge and dark and lidded. He licks his lips and Mark tracks the movement of his tongue, can’t look away.

“After,” Eduardo says, and Mark nods, and then they’re kissing and Mark has never even really been a big fan of kissing, but it is the best thing that has ever happened to him, ever. Eduardo’s tongue in his mouth is better than a million members, better than meeting the president, better than being on the cover of TIME Magazine. At least until Eduardo presses his thigh between Mark’s legs and slides one hand roughly up his neck and into his hair and then _that_ is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he’s gripping at Eduardo’s stupid dress shirt and panting into his mouth, needy and desperate.

“Mark,” Eduardo breathes out, soft, and Mark whines, “Wardo,” and that makes Eduardo smile and lean in to bite at Mark’s jaw.

“What?” Eduardo says between kisses and Mark answers,

“I want, I want, I need you,” too far gone to hear the echo, just trying to answer Eduardo, but it makes Eduardo go tense for a moment before he bites at Mark’s jaw again, hard enough to make Mark yelp this time. “What,” Mark starts, but before he can get anything else out Eduardo is pulling his shirt off over his head at the same time that he’s dragging him forward towards the bed. Eduardo tosses Mark’s t-shirt away and then pushes him forward onto the bed, tugs his shorts off along with his boxers and then smooths a hand over Mark’s back, over the curve of his ass and then down to his thigh.

“Scoot up,” he says, his voice rough, and Mark pushes himself up onto his hands and knees and crawls forward until he’s looking down at the mint on one of the pillows. When Eduardo doesn’t immediately start touching him again, Mark twists around to look at him and then watches with interest as he undresses quickly and carelessly, tossing his cufflinks onto the nightstand without looking and dropping his neatly pressed trousers and shirt in a pile on the floor. When he steps out of his briefs, his cock bounces up against his stomach and the sight of it makes Mark groan. “Needy,” Eduardo comments, neither scolding nor praising, so Mark just nods and then he has to look away when Eduardo reaches down and starts fisting his cock lazily.

“Wardo,” he whines again and he hears Eduardo hum quietly before he feels the bed shift when he climbs on, and then there’s a steadying hand on his back and two fingers pressing into him. He breathes out a soft ‘oh’ and Eduardo hushes him softly and pulls his fingers almost all the way out before pushing them back in, torturously slowly.

“I could do this all night,” Eduardo says, so close that Mark can feel his breath against his spine. He shivers and hears Eduardo laugh. “Could you survive that?” Eduardo asks, sounding curious. “Would that be enough? Just my fingers in you all night, teasing you? Could you get off from that?” Mark doesn’t answer, can’t answer, just pushes back against Eduardo’s fingers and groans. Eduardo’s hand rubs circles on his back and then his fingers are gone and before Mark can even mourn the loss, he’s stretching up to press his chest against Mark’s back and whispering, “I could. But you want more, don’t you, Mark? Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mark manages when it becomes clear that Eduardo is not actually going to do anything until he answers, and Eduardo reaches around him to grab his chin and turn his head to kiss him.

“Okay,” Eduardo says and then he pulls away.

“Condom?” Mark suggests and he turns just in time to see Eduardo roll his eyes.

“I don’t think so,” he answers, and then his hands are on Mark’s thighs, pulling them farther apart before sliding up to press a hand against his back. He’s positioning him, Mark realizes when the hand on his back makes his ass raise a little bit higher into the air, and he wants to be annoyed by it, but he can’t even bring himself to care, because Eduardo’s cock is pressing against him, and then Eduardo is _inside of him_ and he can’t do anything but press back against him and reach back with a sweaty hand to try to pull Eduardo closer, deeper, anything, just more. Eduardo ignores Mark’s groping hand, starts fucking him slow and steady, so Mark gives up and reaches instead for his own cock – but Eduardo doesn’t ignore _that_. He makes a quiet, irritated sound and slaps Mark’s hand away before carefully pulling first Mark’s left arm and then his right out from under him, making him fall forward into the pillow beneath him. “No,” Eduardo says, soft but stern. “You’ll come from me fucking you or not at all.”

Mark nods, and then Eduardo’s thrusts speed up slightly and he slides a hand up Mark’s sweaty back and into his hair, scratches at Mark’s scalp with one fingernail. “I could do this for ages, too,” he says, his voice rough and breathless and dirty. “I could, and then we’d be here all night, Mark. Just me fucking you until I came, and it would take a while. I could fuck you for hours, until you couldn’t come anymore, until you were worn out and oversensitive.” Mark whimpers and Eduardo grabs a handful of his hair and pulls his head up, surprisingly gentle. “Would you like that?” He asks and Mark nods, the movement making Eduardo’s grip on his hair pull.

“Yeah,” he says, “Yes, Wardo,” because he’d like anything, anything Eduardo wanted to do to him, he’d like it.

Eduardo hums and lets go of Mark’s hair, leans down to press a kiss where Mark’s neck meets his shoulder when Mark’s head drops against the pillow again. “I don’t think you’re ready for that,” he says, “And I don’t have the patience,” and then he straightens up, grabs Mark’s hips with both hands and starts fucking him in earnest, hard and fast and just _there_ , until Mark is crying out, clawing at the blankets beneath him, and coming with Eduardo’s name on his lips.

“I can’t,” Eduardo starts, speaking through gritted teeth as he continues to thrust into Mark, “fucking – believe – you’re – my mate – you incredible – fucking – asshole – Mark!” And then he comes, with Mark arching his back up beneath him, trying to curl in on himself, oversensitive and guilty.

Afterwards, Eduardo is gentle. He pushes Mark’s hair out of his face and cleans him up with a wet rag and kisses him softly, tenderly, whispers, “I’m sorry,” against Mark’s lips.

“It’s okay,” Mark answers, because it is. Because he fucked shit up in their friendship and Eduardo has every right to be angry with him. Because he would be angry about being given such an asshole for a mate, too. “It’s okay, Wardo, really,” he says, but he still turns on his side and curls up tight so he doesn’t have to look at Eduardo, still cringes guiltily when Eduardo touches his arm.

“No, it’s not,” Eduardo says sadly, but Mark pretends to be asleep, and after a moment of staring at him, Eduardo sighs and goes to sleep, too.

//

When Mark wakes up the next morning, the bed is empty next to him and one of the fancy chocolate mints from the pillows has melted onto his cheek. He peels the wrapper off his face and tosses it aside before untangling himself from the sheets and going to the bathroom to wash the chocolate off his face. The hotel room is empty and he feels… different. It’s not a bad sort of different or a good sort of different it’s just – different, and he can’t quite put words to the feeling. It’s like there’s something new in the back of his mind – like his brain is a program and someone has added a new line of code and the change is so subtle that he’s not sure what it is, but he knows it’s there.

He can’t figure it out, and he’s really annoyed that he can’t figure it out, and then, just as he’s coming out of the bathroom, the door to the room opens and Eduardo comes in, holding his room key in one hand and balancing two coffees on top of a box of donuts. “Hello,” he says when he sees Mark standing, still naked, outside of the bathroom. “I got breakfast,” he continues. “Give me a hand?”

Mark takes one of the coffees from him and Eduardo nods gratefully before tossing his room key onto the table by the door and shifting things around until he can put the box of donuts down. He takes a tentative sip of the coffee he’s holding and then immediately makes a face and gestures at Mark to switch with him. “I hope you still like your coffee disgustingly sweet,” he says, his face still crinkled up dramatically, “I put like six sugars in that.”

“Thanks,” Mark says, determinedly not smiling at Eduardo’s over the top disgust with one sip of too sweet coffee. He does still like his coffee sweet and he says so. Eduardo slants him a look over the top of his single-sugar coffee that says very clearly he’s not surprised and as Mark looks at him he realizes with a jolt what the strange new thing in the back of his mind is: it’s the bond. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows that that’s what it is, in the same way you sometimes know you’ve slept through your alarm before you even open your eyes. It doesn’t feel the way he expected it to, but then he doesn’t know what he was expecting. Something bigger, heavier. This feels like a bit like their minds are connected by two tin cans and string, except, he thinks, that in this metaphor, cutting the string would probably actually kill both of them, so maybe it _is_ as big as he was expecting.

This is when it hits him that the whole ‘soulmate’ thing wasn’t some kind of mistake. Last night he had sex with Eduardo Saverin, his former CFO and bestfriend, and today he is literally bonded to him for life. It takes about ten seconds for him to become so overwhelmed by this that he has to stop thinking about it and so he tucks it away and focuses instead on putting on his boxers and getting a donut. His (rather impressive, thank you) compartmentalization is ruined, however, when he looks up from taking a big bite of chocolate glaze and finds Eduardo staring at him, head cocked to the side slightly, brow furrowed and lips quirked up at the corners.

“You have some chocolate,” he says, trailing off and miming wiping at his own cheek. He’s leaning against the corner of the desk, which is on the entire other side of the room from Mark, and he doesn’t try to think about whether or not that’s intentional. Mark wipes his cheek with the back of his hand and Eduardo says, “Look,” and Mark knows just from his tone that they are about to Talk with a capital T.

“We don’t have to –“ Mark starts at the same time that Eduardo says, “About last night,” and then there is a moment of awkward silence where Mark can do nothing but think bitterly that soul bonding should definitely make communication easier. Mark doesn’t say anything and after a moment, Eduardo takes his silence as permission to continue and starts again.

“About – about what I said last night, I mean,” he says, and Mark suddenly becomes very interested in his donut. “I’m sorry, Mark. That was – I’ve just been angry with you for a really long time, and I –“

“Eduardo, I said it’s _fine,”_ Mark snaps.

There is a long pause and then Eduardo straightens up and crosses the room until he’s directly in front of Mark, not quite in his space, but close enough for Mark to make out the shape of a mole on his collar bone, peeking out from beneath his neatly pressed shirt. “No,” Eduardo says firmly. “It’s not fine.”

“Just because you’re an alpha doesn’t mean you’re in charge here, okay, I said it’s fine,” Mark says.

Eduardo ignores him. “I’ve been angry with you for a very long time, but we are soul mates, Mark. We’re bonded now. I can feel it and I know you can, too. It’s not fine.” When Mark doesn’t say anything, Eduardo steps closer and puts a hand on Mark’s cheek, his tentative touch a sharp contrast to his firm tone. “It’s not fine,” Eduardo repeats. “I’m sorry, Mark. It won’t happen again. Okay?”

“Okay,” Mark says, because hearing Eduardo apologize to him makes him feel guilty and he’d really like that to stop as soon as possible. Eduardo’s whole body relaxes and he smiles and Mark thinks he’s about to do something sweet like kiss him - _he’d taste like single-sugar coffee and Mark wouldn’t mind, might even like it_ \- and he doesn’t feel equipped to deal with that at all, so he steps back and says, “I have to get to work.” As soon as he says it, he realizes it’s true. His entire company found out that he’s an omega yesterday. He has a crisis to deal with. “Shit,” he says, “I _really_ have to get to work,” and then he’s scrambling to get dressed as fast as he can.

“Some things never change,” Eduardo says. Mark cringes, but when he turns around, Eduardo is smiling, holding his coffee cup in both hands and stroking the rim absently with his thumb.

“Sorry,” Mark says. “I’ll…” He starts, but trails off because he doesn’t actually know what to say. What do you say to your newly bonded soul mate when you have to deal with the fallout of discovering they are your soul mate?

“I’ll see you later,” Eduardo says, grinning, and there’s something about the way he says it that makes Mark think Eduardo knows something he doesn’t, but he doesn’t question it, just nods once and then grabs the rest of his things and runs out.

//

Four and a half hours later, Mark finds out what Eduardo knew that he didn’t. He’s listening to Chris talk about strategies for dealing with shareholders and strategies for dealing with the press and then suddenly he’s not listening anymore, because he can’t focus, because all he can think about is sucking Eduardo’s dick, and while it’s definitely something he’d enjoy, he’s pretty sure that right now this desire isn’t fueled by anything but hormones. It’s five minutes of shifting awkwardly in his chair and crossing and uncrossing his legs before Chris notices and says, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Before Mark can even try to clear his thoughts enough to answer, there’s a knock at the door and then Sean steps in, looking more than a little amused and says, “Just thought you’d like to know your office is starting to smell like a brothel.”

“Get out,” Chris says. Mark thinks he’s talking to Sean at first but then he realizes that Chris is looking directly at him.

“What?” He says, “No, I have stuff to do.”

“ _Yeah,_ you do,” Sean puts in from the door.

“Shut up,” Chris tells him and then, “I’m serious, get out. You are not making things better by rubbing the point in that you’ve been lying to all your employees and investors for years.”

Mark thinks about arguing, but – well, he’s got a point. There’s nothing he can do here if he can’t focus, and anyway, he trusts Chris to come up with a good strategy without his input. Chris has never let him down before.

“Get out,” Chris says again when he doesn’t move and Mark nods.

“I’m going.”

//

Mark hasn’t even raised his hand to knock when Eduardo opens the hotel room door and pulls him in by the collar of his t-shirt. “How did you know I wasn’t housekeeping?” Mark asks when Eduardo leans in and nuzzles the spot where Mark’s jaw meets his ear. He’s dimly aware that Eduardo is _sniffing him_ , and also aware that it’s not at all weird like it probably should be.

“I could smell you as soon as you got out of the elevator,” Eduardo says. He shivers suddenly and Mark doesn’t know why until he realizes that his own hands have moved onto his hips and up under his untucked shirt, seemingly of their own accord.

“How did you know I wasn’t housekeeping in heat?” Mark continues and Eduardo pulls back to give him a look. “I’m just saying,” Mark says, and Eduardo huffs out a laugh and rolls his eyes before leaning back against the wall behind him and pulling Mark into him.

“I was afraid you were never going to leave the office,” he says. His tone is casual but as he’s talking, his hands are slipping down to palm Mark’s ass in a way that is not casual at all.

Mark hums noncommittally and then says, “It turns out Chris has a problem with me thinking about blowing you while in the office. Which reminds me, do you know why I couldn’t stop thinking about blowing you while in the office?”

Eduardo’s eyes go comically wide and then he laughs, tilting forward to rest his forehead on Mark’s shoulder for a moment. “You’ve heard of the honeymoon period?” He says when he straightens up again, grinning broadly. “Well, apparently – my father didn’t talk much about it during our lessons, because he’d never experienced it, not on this level, but apparently when the bond is first formed there’s some… honeymoon-esque side effects.”

“Side effects,” Mark repeats.

“Mmm,” Eduardo confirms. “It’s like being in heat except it sort of… comes and goes frequently for an undetermined amount of time. It’s meant to force newly bonded mates to solidify the bond over and over and over. And it affects me, too! I don’t know how you handle going into heat like this every month, I’d go crazy.”

Mark stares at Eduardo, chattering away happily and tries to quell his growing horror at the idea of being incapacitated by this for an ‘undetermined amount of time.’ “I don’t handle it,” he points out distractedly. “I take suppressors.”

“Not anymore,” Eduardo says, and then, before Mark can ask what that means, he leans in and kisses him, using his grip on Mark’s ass to pull him flush against him. When he eventually breaks the kiss, they are both breathless and too hot in all their layers of clothing and Mark has forgotten completely what they were talking about. “You were saying something about fantasizing in your office?” Eduardo suggests, out of breath but still wearing a cheeky grin.

Mark pinches his hip in an attempt to wipe that grin off his face. And then he drops to his knees.

//

There is a sloppy blowjob in the entryway of the hotel room, Eduardo panting, his pants loose around his hips, his hands in Mark’s hair when he comes. After that there’s a shower and Eduardo’s hands, warm and slick with water, and Eduardo’s mouth, too distracted for a kiss, just breathing against Mark’s lips, his eyes fixed on Mark’s face, and Mark forces his eyes open when he comes so that he sees the way Eduardo grins as he breathes in the whine that Mark lets out. Then there’s room service, sandwiches and beers, and Eduardo smiling at him over a turkey club.

That part is weird, which is maybe a weird thought for Mark to have, when you consider that he’s fucked his ex-best friend twice in the last two days, and he thinks it’s weird for them to _smile at each other._ Eduardo seems very at ease though, more than Mark would have expected, which is why he’s able to work up the courage, as he’s watching Eduardo lick a bit of mustard off his finger, to say, “We should go to my place.”

Eduardo looks up at him, and Mark wonders if he’s going to say no, insist on keeping this—whatever it is—in a space that he controls, but instead he sets what’s left of his sandwich down, shrugs, and says, “Okay. I just have to pack.”

//

Eduardo’s so-called honeymoon period lasts an entire week. They spend the whole week in Mark’s house, too afraid to go out after Eduardo tried to go for a run on the second day, got hit by a wave of hormones, and had to call Mark to meet him for a quickie in the public bathrooms at the park. They get several disapproving looks from parents when they come out, and after that there is a mutual agreement to stay away from other human beings. Mark calls Chris and Dustin a lot, harasses them for updates, and Eduardo, when he isn’t doing his level best to distract Mark from his phone or laptop by sucking hickies on his neck, conducts all of his business from a very old blackberry. Mark tries very hard not to find it endearing that Eduardo apparently hasn’t upgraded his phone in years, especially when he has to hang up on his CFO sort of abruptly because Eduardo is holding that phone in one hand and unzipping his pants with the other.

Mark spends the entire week waiting for something to go wrong. Eduardo seems perfectly at ease, more like the Eduardo Mark knew at Harvard than the one who sat across a table from him during the depositions, but Mark still feels like there’s something they’re not talking about—like maybe they’re playing a game of feelings chicken and Eduardo is waiting for Mark to admit guilt before he’ll admit that yes, he does actually still hate Mark, and he’d never even have talked to him again if his body hadn’t decided that the chemicals Mark’s body produced were the very best chemicals in the entire world. He keeps expecting Eduardo to get angry again, to be rough and a little mean like he was that first night, but the thing is—the thing is that Eduardo said it wouldn’t happen again, and it doesn’t. Not even once. 

For example: the night after the park bathroom incident, Mark wakes in the dark, too hot under the covers and tingling with a now familiar desire. Eduardo is asleep next to him, wearing nothing but a pair of Mark’s sweatpants, which are rolled up to his knees because they were too short for him anyway. He stirs when Mark wriggles out from under the blankets, reaches out without opening his eyes to touch Mark’s side and says, “You okay?”

Mark toys with the idea of letting him sleep, waiting until morning. He thinks he could; he doesn’t feel desperate yet, not even close, but then Eduardo moves his hand, pushes it up under Mark’s shirt to pinch his nipple. Mark whimpers and Eduardo says, “yeah,” breathy, almost a sigh, before pushing himself up onto his knees and crawling over for a kiss.

“I was going to let you sleep,” Mark informs him when they break apart so that Eduardo can pull Mark’s t-shirt off. It gets tangled briefly around Mark’s arms and Eduardo laughs as he untangles it in the dark.

“That would have been rude,” he says, leaning back in eagerly to get his mouth on Mark’s bare chest. “Why would I want to miss this?”

He sounds very earnest, but he’s also got a hand in his own—well, Mark’s, but he’s wearing them—sweatpants so Mark rolls his eyes anyway. He is about to say something undoubtedly clever back, but then Eduardo tugs the pajamas he’s wearing down, situates himself between Mark’s open legs and says, “Can I?” and Mark can only nod enthusiastically, because his mind goes a little bit blank.

Eduardo mouths sort of sloppily at Mark’s cock, but it’s enough, still, to make him groan and push up a little, his cock drooling pre-come onto his own stomach. Eduardo smiles, and Mark thinks he’s about to take him all the way in, to suck him off properly, but then he moves down instead, down, and down, until his tongue is swirling around Mark’s hole.

“You don’t have to,” Mark tells him, because it’s the polite thing to do, even if he’s sliding one hand into Eduardo’s hair and biting back a moan when he says it.

“I want to,” Eduardo says. A pause, and then, “As long as it’s okay.”

“It’s okay,” Mark says. “It’s definitely okay.” Eduardo presses a kiss against the inside of his thigh, and Mark can feel him smiling, and he would probably dwell on that except that then Eduardo’s tongue is back and with it, a finger, and he kind of loses his train of thought.

Mark doesn’t know how much time passes before he uses the hand in Eduardo’s hair to pull him up, maybe an eternity and maybe just a couple of minutes, it doesn’t really matter, because either way he’s gasping when Eduardo crawls up over him and grins. Eduardo ducks down and presses a kiss to Mark’s nose, whispers, “What do you want?” against his cheek, and Mark’s heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest, so instead of answering, he starts fumbling to get Eduardo’s pants off, grumbles in frustration when Eduardo laughs and pushes them down himself, his hands steady where Mark’s are shaking.

It feels overwhelming, suddenly, Eduardo’s steady hands on his ribs, the fondness in his eyes, the smile stretching across his face, and Mark needs it to be something he can deal with, so he grabs Eduardo’s hips and yanks him down so that their dicks rub together. “Wardo,” he says, and Eduardo groans in reply, rolls his hips against him. “Come on,” he says, relaxing his grips on Eduardo’s hips. Eduardo nods, drops his head into the crook of Mark’s neck, and Mark is expecting him to pull back, to line himself up, to fuck him, but instead he just shifts slightly and rolls his hips again. The angle is just right, and the friction is perfect, and when Eduardo does it again, Mark whines, digs his fingers into Eduardo’s ass.

“Yeah,” Eduardo sighs, rolling his hips again, “Yeah, Mark, like that,” he says, even though Mark isn’t doing anything, just holding on tight. Still, Eduardo keeps murmuring to him, his breath hot against Mark’s shoulder, keeps talking even when Mark is so close that he can’t hear anything but the thrum of his pulse in his ear, doesn’t stop until after Mark comes, silent and shaking, turning his face into Eduardo’s hair. After that Eduardo just groans, hips stuttering, ruining his steady rhythm. He says, “Mark, Mark,” and then, “touch me,” and Mark does, fits his hand between them to get at Eduardo’s cock, strokes once, twice, and then Eduardo is coming all over Mark’s stomach.

For a moment they are both still, Eduardo panting against Mark’s bony shoulder, and then he straightens up, grins down at Mark and says, “I’m going to brush my teeth,” before disappearing into the bathroom. Mark is cold in all the places where Eduardo was touching him now, but his limbs feel, very pleasantly, like they’ve turned into jelly, so he doesn’t move until Eduardo reappears with a washcloth in one hand. He cleans Mark off, gentle and quick, and then he leans in for a kiss that tastes like toothpaste, pulls away and nudges Mark gently with one hand until he rolls onto his side so that Eduardo can wrap himself around his back and hold Mark tight against his chest.

Mark thinks, then, as Eduardo’s arm settles around his waist and his breath evens out into sleep that his back might break under the weight of his guilt— that maybe Eduardo knows his gentle hands and fond smiles are a worse punishment than cruelty could ever be.

Well. He’ll just have to live with it.

//

The day before Mark is due to go back to work, one week after the honeymoon week—Chris thought it would be wise to wait a little longer, make sure it was out of their system; he was right—Mark flops carelessly onto his bed and smiles when Eduardo grumbles slightly because it’s a little before midnight and he’s already mostly asleep even though the lights are still on. Among the many things that Mark has on his mental lists of ‘things they’re not talking about’ is this sort of domestic thing they’re doing where they sleep in the same bed and Eduardo cuddles a lot and makes breakfast in the morning.

Eduardo squints at him with one eye and says, “turn the light off,” so Mark reaches over and hits the switch on his lamp.

“Thanks,” Eduardo says, already rolling into Mark’s space until they’re sharing a pillow.

Mark hums in response, yawns, says, “Remind me to start taking my suppressors again tomorrow.”

“Why?” Eduardo says sleepily, his thumb rubbing circles on Mark’s hip. “You don’t need them. I’ll take care of you.”

He sounds like he’s mostly asleep, like maybe he won’t remember this in the morning, but he also sounds very genuine. Mark feels a little like he’s choking on something, but he just swallows hard and says, “Oh. Okay.”

//

In the morning, when Eduardo has already got up and gone to make coffee, Mark stares at the pack of pills in his bedside drawer. He throws them away.

//

Later, when Mark is at lunch with Dustin and Chris—who, by the way, have apparently also hopped on board the not-talking-about-it train—his phone buzzes with a text from Eduardo that says, _please come home early. early for you, not early for regular people. before I fall asleep._ He rolls his eyes at his phone,  but, well… He does end up leaving the office at seven.

“Is this early for you?” Eduardo asks when Mark comes in the door. His tone is conversational, but he could still be angry, so Mark doesn’t answer until he follows his voice into the living room, finds him sprawled out on his back on the couch, holding his phone over his head. He’s still dressed, which Mark takes to mean he wasn’t planning on going to bed any time soon, which means he can’t be mad about the time.

Mark shrugs, realizes Eduardo is still looking at his phone, and says, “Yeah.”

“Well, it’s better than I was expecting,” Eduardo says, and Mark cringes, turns away from him. He doesn’t get far, because then Eduardo is saying, “No, no, no, hey, that’s not what I meant,” and he’s dropping his phone on the floor with a thud and grabbing Mark’s hand. He doesn’t pull him back, just laces their fingers together and says, gentle, “Come here. Please.”

So Mark turns around and takes a couple of steps back towards Eduardo and then Eduardo _does_ pull him in, and it’s enough of a surprise that Mark drops his computer bag and topples forward into his lap, which seems to have been his goal, because he’s grinning as he lays back down, pulling Mark with him. “My laptop,” Mark says, glancing at the fallen bag.

“You can check it in a second.”

“If it’s broken—“

“It’s not broken,” Eduardo says, and then there’s two fingers on Mark’s chin, turning him gently away from the computer and making him look at Eduardo, who is looking back at him with big, annoyingly earnest eyes. “I didn’t mean that I don’t expect much from you,” he says. “That’s not what I meant. I only meant that I know how much you care about Facebook,” Mark tries to look away then, so that he doesn’t have to think about _how_ Eduardo knows how much he cares about Facebook, exactly what Mark did to show him, but Eduardo turns him back again with the fingers on his chin, “What I _meant_ is that Facebook is important to you, and usually when things are important to you, you throw yourself in head first, and you’ve been away from it for two weeks, so I just wouldn’t have been _surprised_ if you’d been very late tonight.”

Mark doesn’t say anything for a moment, so Eduardo squeezes his hand and says, “Okay?” and Mark nods even though he doesn’t really believe him. Eduardo might be good at, whatever, pretending he doesn’t hate Mark, but he was bound to slip up sometime. It’s fine. It helps, maybe. Reminds him of what this is.

He tries to hold onto that reminder when Eduardo smiles and slips one hand into Mark’s hair to pull him in for a kiss, but then Eduardo is licking his mouth open and sighing, “I’m glad you came home early,” against Mark’s lips, and Mark sort of loses track of it, because it feels real. This will all be worth it, probably, the punishment—because he’s sure that’s what it is now, a punishment, a taste of exactly what he’ll never have for real—if sometimes, every once in a while, he gets a moment like this, where he can forget.

The kissing lasts for a while, until Mark’s lips are starting to feel a little chapped, until Mark is hard in his pants, the line of his cock pressing against Eduardo’s thigh. Then Eduardo breaks the kiss and smiles at him, warm, and, because it feels like an important point to make, even if it is probably on the list of things they’re not talking about, Mark says, “Facebook isn’t the only thing that’s important to me.”

Eduardo raises his eyebrows, still smiling. “Oh really?” he says, and Mark would answer, probably, except that then Eduardo slips one of his hands between them to palm Mark’s dick and he kind of forgets what they’re talking about.

Eduardo does nothing but rub gently through Mark’s jeans though, and Mark tries to move his hips, to do anything to get more friction, but Eduardo has got a hand on the small of his back, holding him firmly in place. Eduardo lifts his hips so that Mark can feel him, hard in his slacks—the slacks that he’s letting Mark wrinkle in his attempts to rub off on him, and why is that hot?—and Mark drops his head to Eduardo’s shoulder and whines, “Wardo, please.” Eduardo just hums, nuzzling his face into Mark’s hair, so Mark adds, “I’m not above begging.”

That makes Eduardo laugh. “Oh? That must be a new development,” he says, but he also starts undoing Mark’s zipper, so Mark ignores him.

//

A week later, Mark goes into heat for the first time in years, wakes Eduardo up in the middle of the night, gasping, “Please, please,” because he’d forgotten, even with the bonding period, he’d forgotten. By the time Eduardo is fully awake, Mark is whimpering, his head tucked against Eduardo’s chest, contorted uncomfortably as he tries to rub himself off against his hip.

“Hey, hey,” Eduardo says, and then his arms come around Mark and he rubs gentle circles on his back, says, “Shh, I’ve got you, it’s okay,” and Mark comes with a gasp, but it’s not enough, and he’s fumbling to untie the drawstring of Eduardo’s pajamas before he’s even through the last of the aftershocks. He doesn’t realize he’s still saying ‘please’ over and over until Eduardo grabs both of his wrists in one hand and says, “Okay. Okay. I’m here. Look at me.” Mark looks at him and he can’t read the look on his face, but his eyes are impossibly huge and shiny and his mouth is open a little, awed, maybe, but that’s not right, it’s probably pity. “I’m here,” Eduardo says, licking his lips. “I told you I’d take care of you, and I will. Now take your pants off.”

The juxtaposition of those two sentences would make Mark laugh if he weren’t too busy taking his pants off.

“Please,” he says again, but Eduardo is still getting his own pants off, so Mark tries to help, but they just get tangled and then Eduardo is laughing as he kicks his pajamas off his ankles. “Wardo,” Mark demands, impatient.

Eduardo nods at him, still smiling, pulls Mark down on top of him, and then there are fingers stretching Mark, but it’s too slow, Eduardo is taking his time. Mark groans, rocks back impatiently and bites Eduardo’s shoulder a little too hard. He hears Eduardo let out a hiss of breath through his teeth and then he’s laughing again when he says, “Does that mean faster?”

“Yes,” Mark says immediately, and Eduardo says, “Okay,” and then he’s flipping Mark onto his back and pushing his legs up—which, wow, Mark didn’t actually know he was that flexible—and finally, finally lining himself up and pushing in.

When he’s fully seated, Eduardo kisses Mark’s knee, strokes his thumb against his thigh and says, “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” Mark says immediately, blinking up at him and then, when he realizes that might have been the wrong answer, because Eduardo makes a little sound in the back of his throat but doesn’t move, he adds, “Hard.”

Eduardo nods a few times, leans down to kiss him, which makes Mark’s thighs strain a little, but he doesn’t mind, and then, finally, Eduardo is moving, thrusting hard and fast until all Mark can hear is the rush of his own blood and the slap of skin on skin and Eduardo muttering, “I’m here, I’ve got you,” over and over.

//

Mark’s heat lasts three days and Eduardo, true to his word, takes care of him.

//

A week after that, they’re eating dinner together and Eduardo says, “I need to go back to Singapore.”

Mark looks up at him, but before he can say anything, Eduardo adds, “Just for a couple of days. To sort some things out, get my stuff. And then I’ll come back here. Alright?”

“Alright,” Mark agrees, heart in his throat, because it’s the closest they’ve come to talking about the fact that Eduardo sort of lives here now.

It’s only three days later, when Eduardo is in Singapore and Mark wakes up from a nap to find that years of suppressors have made his body’s schedule a little irregular that he regrets agreeing to let Eduardo leave.

//

His first thought is that he can just power through it like he did the first time he went into heat. It’ll probably only last a day, and it’s a Saturday, so he doesn’t have anywhere to be. He can manage being alone and in heat for a day.

That works for a while. He’s not used to ignoring it anymore, which makes things extra unpleasant, but he’s handling it.

Only, it doesn’t just last a day, because then it’s Sunday night and he’s _still_ in heat, and he can’t miss work tomorrow, he’s missed so much lately already, so he does the only thing he can think of.

He calls Sean.

//

Sean lets himself in without knocking, as usual. Mark isn’t complaining, given his current desperation. As soon as the door is shut he calls, “I thought you said Wardo wasn’t here.”

“He’s not,” Mark calls back, to which Sean replies, “Then why does it smell like you've been hosting orgies in here?”

Of course, then he walks into the living room and answers his own question. Mark is sitting on the couch with a hand in his pants, and the dildo Sean gave him years ago is sitting on the coffee table, discarded after it proved unhelpful.  Sean freezes in the doorway, stares at him for a moment and then says, “Mark. Why am I here?”

“The same reason as usual. Well, no, I didn’t forget a pill, I just—I’m still a little irregular.”

“That’s not quite what I meant,” Sean says. “What about Eduardo?”

“He’s not back until Tuesday.”

“That’s _definitely_ not what I meant. Don’t you think he’d be upset about you sleeping with someone else? Especially _me?_ ”

Mark rolls his eyes. “We’re not—it’s not like that,” he says, because it’s not. It’s really not.

Sean softens a little, his expression sad, the way Chris’s sometimes get when Mark is just _not getting something._ “Mark, he’s your mate.”

“Yes,” Mark snaps, frustrated, “and he used to be my best friend and neither of those things mean he has any feelings for me now. It’s just chemicals. You know that, okay? We’ve fucked, because my body makes chemicals that your body likes and vice versa, but that doesn’t mean you and I are in love.”

“No,” Sean agrees, “it doesn’t, but it’s not that simple, and even if it was, Eduardo isn’t me, and I don’t think—“

“Sean,” Mark cuts in, “Enough. I’m telling you, it’s not like that. Now I need your help to get this out of my system, because I can’t miss work tomorrow. Are you going to help me or not?”

Sean stares at him for a long time, his expression serious, and then he says, “I’m going to jerk you off right now, because you’re in need and that’s what friends are for, but this is the last time, Mark. I don’t care what you say, this is cheating, and I don’t do that.”

“Fine,” Mark says, already shoving his pants down. “Whatever.”

“Also,” Sean continues as he comes all the way into the room, “if Eduardo gets territorial and kicks my ass for this, that’s on you.”

//

After, when Mark is determinedly not looking at Sean while he pulls his pants back up, Sean puts a hand on his knee and says, “You should talk to him. Whatever you think is going on, you’re wrong.”

“How would you know?” Mark says. It comes out sort of sharp and cutting, but Sean ignores that.

“I saw the way he looked at you, back in the beginning. You might be blind, but I’m not.”

//

By the time Eduardo gets back on Tuesday, Mark has convinced himself that they do need to talk, but all his courage goes out the window the second Eduardo walks into the living room. He’s dragging a suitcase and he looks tired, but when he sees Mark waiting for him he smiles so wide that Mark is surprised he isn’t actually glowing. “Hi,” he says, letting go of his suitcase and sitting down next to Mark, nuzzling into his neck. His hair is damp and there’s water on his jacket—it’s raining outside, Mark’s brain supplies—and the similarity to another moment long ago is not lost on Mark.

He’s just deciding to forget it, they don’t need to talk, it doesn’t matter, when Eduardo goes still next to him. “Wardo?” Mark says, “How was Singapore?”

Eduardo ignores him, pulls back, frowning, and says, “You smell different.”

“I—what?”

“Mark,” Eduardo says slowly, an expression that Mark doesn’t want to decipher forming on his face, “What happened while I was gone?”

“Nothing,” Mark says. Eduardo’s head cocks to the side and his expression shifts into something fierce and angry that Mark can’t lie to, so he adds, “I went into heat again, but it was fine, Sean helped, so—“

Eduardo is off the couch before Mark can say anything more, standing over him with a look on his face that Mark hasn’t seen since Eduardo leaned over him and said, ‘lawyer up, asshole.’ “’Sean helped’?” Eduardo says, his voice breaking a little. “Are you fucking kidding?”

“It wasn’t a big deal, he used to…” Mark trails off, not sure how to continue, and Eduardo says,

“What? Used to what, Mark?” When Mark doesn’t answer, something like horror comes across Eduardo’s face and he says, “Were you and Sean—before, were you together? Oh God, I’m so stupid. You said, in your office, you said you were _connected_ to him, and I thought you meant you were friends, Jesus…”

“No, Wardo,” Mark starts, standing up. “No, God, Sean and I—he’s my best friend. That’s all. He used to help, sometimes, when I would miss pills.”

“And what, you just thought, ‘Gosh, I’m sure Wardo won’t mind if I fuck Sean the second he leaves town for a few days’? Was I so unsatisfying that you couldn’t wait to call him up and replace me with him again?”

Mark takes a step back, shakes his head. “That’s not—you weren’t here, and I was going to miss work.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Eduardo snaps.

Mark flinches. Guilt flickers briefly across Eduardo’s face, but then it’s gone again and Mark knows he was wrong when he thought he could live with this, so he says, “Look, Wardo, I wanted to apologize—“

“For what?” Eduardo cuts in. “For fucking Sean?”

“No,” Mark says, “I mean, yes, if that—I didn’t think you’d care—“

“Didn’t think I’d care?!”

“I wanted to apologize for Facebook!” Eduardo falls silent, staring at Mark sort of incredulously, and Mark hurries to take advantage of his silence and get the rest of it out. “I’m really sorry for what I did, okay, I mean—you weren’t right for Facebook, but I should’ve done it differently, and I’m really sorry that I hurt you, so you can stop torturing me.”

Eduardo blinks several times before he says, “Torturing you? What are you talking about?”

“Pretending you don’t hate me so that I’ll feel guilty. I know I deserve it, for what I did, but I can’t take it anymore, okay, it would be better if you just—like that first night, when you yelled at me. I can take that.” Mark feels like he’s talking very quickly, tripping over his own tongue. Eduardo looks like he’s just been slapped.

“You think I’ve been—that’s what you think of me?” He’s not looking at Mark now, just staring blankly at a spot near Mark’s elbow and nodding slowly. Finally he says, “I need to—I have to go,” and then he turns around and walks out of the house.

//

Eduardo left his suitcase, so probably he’s coming back, but Mark still doesn’t know what he should be doing right now, so he does the only thing he can think of: he calls Chris. Who calls Dustin, who calls Sean, and before Mark really knows what’s going on, all three of them are in his living room and he is being forced to relate the entire series of events to them, with ‘as little of the sex parts as you can manage, because gross,’ in Dustin’s words.

So he tells them everything, and then he looks at Chris, because there was a reason he called Chris first, and the reason is that Chris is usually the best at advice.

To everyone’s surprise though, it’s Dustin who speaks first, and what he says is, “Marky Mark, Markzilla, the Markster, I love you, but you are the dumbest genius in the entire world.”

Mark blinks a few times. Sean and Chris nod in agreement. “But—“ Mark starts, only to be cut off immediately.

“No buts,” Dustin says. “The _dumbest_ genius. Now, I know you and Wardo have been not-talking for years, and apparently your judgement has been clouded with guilt, which, aaaw, who would have thought? Not us, but listen to me. In the time you’ve known Eduardo, have you ever known him to do anything as grossly emotionally manipulative as faking a relationship in order to show you what you can never have?”

“He cancelled the bank account,” Mark says immediately, and then, “he _sued_ me!”

Dustin holds up a hand. “I’m not saying he’s not an asshole sometimes,” he says, “But what you’re saying he’s been doing would be a whole new level.”

Mark thinks about that and okay, yeah, it’s probably not Eduardo’s style. Still… “But if he’s not trying to make me feel guilty, then why is he acting like we’re, you know… whatever?”

“In love?” Sean supplies, batting his eyelashes a little. Mark does not acknowledge him, just keeps staring expectantly at Dustin, who stares back like he’s waiting for Mark to catch on. This goes on for a while before Chris says,

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mark, because he _is_ in love with you.”

“I wanted him to get it on his own!” Dustin whines.

“I know,” Chris says, “but I’ve done this before and trust me, this is much less painful.”

Dustin says something else then, but Mark isn’t listening anymore because he’s still stuck back at the part where Wardo is in love with him. That could maybe make sense, _maybe_ , ignoring the fact that he definitely hated him, for a while at least, even if he doesn’t anymore. Mark doesn’t really know how to feel about that though. Is it better or worse this way? Mark knew, back at Harvard, that he loved Eduardo, but he thought it was more or less the same way that he loved Dustin, or Chris. And he’s always maintained that he still cares about Eduardo, even if he’d never admit it, even if Eduardo didn’t care about him, so it’s not exactly a revelation, to love him, but now he’s thinking about how it had felt to come home to Eduardo sitting on his couch, waiting for him, about Eduardo rubbing his back and whispering, ‘I’ve got you,’ and he’s wondering if maybe it’s always been the same kind of love after all.

“I think this is the part where the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes,” Dustin whispers to Chris, snapping Mark out of his head in time to find all three of them staring at him.

“Shut up,” he says, and then, “Leave. All of you.”

“Someone’s ungrateful,” Dustin says, but they do all get up and start putting their jackets on, and Mark only waits until they’re at the living room door to choke out a ‘thank you’.

//

After they’re gone, Mark gets his phone and texts Eduardo, _can we talk?_ He falls asleep on the couch waiting for a reply, and when he wakes up, he has an unread message from Eduardo.

It says _no._

//

So. Mark is in love with his soul mate and normally that would, you know, be a good thing, but possibly that soul mate no longer wants anything to do with him. He’s not really sure how to deal with that on any level, so instead of dealing with it, he spends forty-eight hours obsessively creating an app that omegas can use to track their heat. During that time, he eats nothing but a yogurt and a pear, both purchased by Eduardo; when the app is finished, he falls asleep on the couch for three hours and wakes up to Eduardo standing over him, looking unimpressed.

“Hi,” Mark says, trying to act like he wasn’t just drooling on the arm of the couch.

“I don’t want to talk,” Eduardo says. “I only came to get my suitcase.”

“Oh,” Mark says. Eduardo nods once and then turns to go. He only makes it a few steps before he comes back again.

“But for the record, I wasn’t _pretending_ anything, you asshole—“

“I know that,” Mark cuts in. “I know that now.”

“Oh,” Eduardo says, a little bit deflated. “Well, good. Because I wouldn’t do that. I was angry at you for a long time, but I never _hated_ you, and I got over it. I had to get over it, we’re _bonded._ I’m your alpha, Mark, I’m supposed to take care of you.”

“I know,” Mark repeats, and Eduardo nods and turns to go again, which is not at all what Mark wants to happen, but he’s not sure what he’s actually supposed to say—he probably should have got that out of Chris and Dustin before he made them all leave—so he just blurts out, “Don’t go.”

Eduardo’s shoulders slump, but he stops and he sighs and says, “Why not?”

That’s a good question, and one which Mark doesn’t have a very good answer to, but, “Because I don’t want you to,” he says, and then, “because I need you here.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you right now, Mark,” Eduardo says. “I know I said I’d take care of you and I’m sorry if you need it, but I can’t right now.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Mark says, and then hesitates. He’s not foolish enough to think that Eduardo is going to let him off the hook without explaining himself, but he also really doesn’t like admitting to being wrong or talking about his feelings, so he takes a minute to prepare himself and then, speaking as quickly as he can in order to get it over with as fast as possible, he says, “Dustin says I’m the dumbest genius he’s ever met, and he’s right, because I thought… what I thought, and I called Sean even though you hate him, because I didn’t think you’d care, but I was wrong and I love you, and I’m sorry, and if it makes you feel any better, he just jerked me off and it wasn’t as good as with you.”

Eduardo just looks at him for a long time, arms folded across his chest. Eventually he says, “Dustin’s right, you know.”

“I know,” Mark says.

“I do care,” he continues. “I’ve been in love with you pretty much since we met. You can’t keep doing this to me, okay, I don’t want to be constantly afraid that you’re looking to replace me.”

“I won’t be. I promise, I won’t be.”

Eduardo nods once and then he unfolds his arms and steps into Mark’s space, grabs Mark’s hips and pulls him forward until they’re pressed together. His thumb slips under Mark’s t-shirt and rubs little circles into his skin. “I’ll stay,” he says, “on one condition.” He raises an eyebrow and Mark nods eagerly, his hands sliding up Eduardo’s sides. Eduardo leans in close until his lips are so close to Mark’s ear that he can feel him breathing, feel the slight scratch of stubble on his cheek. “You’re going to tell me _every single way_ that you ever let Sean Parker touch you, in detail, and I’m going to do it better, and then we’re _never going to talk about it again._ ”

Mark shivers even though it’s not cold, feels Eduardo smile against his cheek and tighten his grip on Mark’s hips. He’s thinking of all the favors Sean ever did for him and his brain is maybe turning into mush, but he still manages to say, “I thought you weren’t going to sleep with me tonight.”

“Shut up,” Eduardo says.

And then he leans in and kisses him.

//

_Six months later_

The bar is loud, crowded with people—mostly Facebook employees, actually, this close to the office—taking advantage of happy hour drinks, but Mark still knows the second Sean sees Eduardo sitting in the booth they’re heading for, across from Chris and Dustin. He knows because Sean stops in his tracks, says, “You said he wasn’t going to be here! You set me up!” and then immediately tries to turn around and flee.

Fortunately, Mark saw that coming, and he grabs Sean by the sleeve of his shirt and pulls him back. “Yes, I did,” he agrees, ignoring Sean when he says something that sounds very much like, ‘et tu, Brute?’

So Sean is a little afraid of Eduardo. Mark doesn’t blame him, actually, not after the whole punch-fake-out thing, but that was ages ago and Mark is kind of getting tired of having to choose between hanging out with his best friend and hanging out with his boyfriend/soulmate/whatever Eduardo actually is at this point. Anyway, Sean is only afraid because he thinks Eduardo wants to state his claim by kicking his ass, but only half of that is true. Eduardo did want to state his claim, but the manner in which he did it was much more about Mark’s ass than Sean’s. Really, Eduardo has been over the Sean thing since a couple months ago, when he finished making Mark recount, in excruciating detail, everything that he and Sean ever did so that he could do it better.

(The last time had been a sloppy handjob on the couch, and Mark’s stomach had turned a little at first, when he started talking about it, but Eduardo kissed him and whispered, “it’s okay, it’s already forgiven, just do this for me,” and maybe it wasn’t the most healthy thing they’d ever done together, but fuck if Mark cared about that afterwards when Eduardo was licking his come off his fingers and saying, “better?”, grinning when Mark nodded.)

Anyway. The point is, Eduardo isn’t mad anymore, so it’s time for Sean to stop being afraid. “Look,” Mark says, “I spent three hours today being _interviewed_ by _Oprah_ about the experience of being an omega in such a highly ranked position, and then I had to talk about _why_ we should be working on erasing that stigma, and I would like to spend a night out with people that I like, so you are going to suck it up.” Maybe Sean gets that it’s important to him because when Mark nudges him towards the booth, he goes willingly, with only the smallest of resigned sighs.

Dustin greets Sean very enthusiastically when they get to the booth, which everyone is visibly grateful for, because what might otherwise have been an awkward moment is instead broken by Dustin shouting, “The Seanster has arrived,” throwing his arms up in the air and spilling a bit of beer on his own head. Sean slips into the booth next to Chris and Eduardo reaches up and tugs Mark in next to him, pulls him so close he’s practically in Eduardo’s lap.

Okay, so maybe Eduardo is a little more possessive when Sean is around but that’s fine. Mark can work with that.

“Dustin was telling the story of the girl from accounting,” Chris says. He sounds unimpressed, which, Mark can’t blame him for that because he’s heard the story of the girl from accounting six times today, and the story is pretty much just that she had boobs and Dustin saw them.

“It’s a good story,” Dustin says, at the same time that Eduardo says, “We should talk about something else.”

“We should talk about how you don’t want to murder Sean,” Mark tells him. Sean chokes on the drink he just stole from Chris.

Eduardo looks Sean up and down, shrugs. “I don’t want to murder him; just rough him up a little. That’s assault, and it’s different.”

Sean actually looks like he’s going to throw up until Eduardo starts laughing, and then he slumps into the booth with a relieved sigh. “I think I just saw my life flash before my eyes,” he says, ignoring the eye roll this earns him from Mark.

“I thought I was the dramatic one in this group,” Dustin says, and then Chris is trying to shut him up and Dustin is yelling about how he no longer knows where he stands and maybe he’s having an identity crisis now. Mark ignores him in favor of bumping his shoulder against Eduardo’s until he turns and kisses Mark hello.

“Thanks for that,” Mark says when they break apart and Eduardo throws his arm around Mark’s shoulder. “I know you’ve never liked him, but—“

“He’s your best friend,” Eduardo says, “And Chris likes him well enough, so he can’t be _all_ bad.”

Mark shrugs, says, “I don’t know. He is _pretty_ bad,” and Eduardo laughs and kisses him again.

This time they only break apart when Chris, almost yelling to be heard over Dustin, declares, “Anyway, we’ve had to deal with not just one but _two_ romance-novel-worthy Mark-Wardo break ups, so I think we can all agree that _they_ are the dramatic ones in this group.”

“Technically we never broke up,” Mark says at the same time that Dustin says, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m actually the devilishly handsome one.”

“No,” Chris says, taking his drink back from Sean and taking a long sip. “That’s me.”

Dustin starts yelling again, of course, and Sean gets up to get a drink of his own, and Eduardo is drawing patterns on Mark’s shoulder with his fingertips, and Mark feels good, just-launched-Facebook good, and he’s not very good at saying it, but he figures he should probably try, so he nudges Eduardo with his elbow and says, “I’m pretty into you, you know. And not just because my dick likes the way you smell.”

Eduardo grins at him, big and toothy and says, “Yeah. Me, too.”


	2. i will catch you friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just an outtake from eduardo's pov. after the hotel scene, eduardo calls his father for some advice.

Eduardo can’t sleep, after that first time. He’s lying in bed, in the expensive hotel room he booked for the shareholders meeting, alternately beating himself up and trying to justify the things he said to Mark. Neither of those things is proving at all productive, because he _can’t_ justify it, yelling at Mark, during _sex_ , of all times, and the more he beats himself up, the guiltier he feels and the less likely it is he’ll be getting any sleep.

At four in the morning he finally gives up, slips out of bed, gets dressed silently in the bathroom and leaves Mark sleeping while he sneaks out and goes to a 24 hour donut shop a few blocks away. He doesn’t really know what to do—Mark is his _mate_ and he’s supposed to take care of him, but how can he do that now? He did that for years, brought Mark meals and made him shower and put him to bed and where did it get him? And even if that wasn’t an issue, it’s not like he‘s off to a very good start.

So. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s seven o’clock in Miami. He calls his father.

“Edu?” his father says when he picks up the phone, obviously surprised. “What are you doing, calling so early?”

Suddenly Eduardo feels all of eight years old, sitting in his father’s office, in a chair three times his size. “Pai,” he says, surprised to find his voice breaks. “Something’s happened.”

“What is it?” comes the reply, heavy with concern. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Eduardo says. “I mean, no, but—it’s about Mark. I don’t know what to do.”

For just a moment, his father is silent, and then he says, “Tell me,” and Eduardo does, tells him everything that happened, leaving out the more graphic parts. When he’s finished, his father sighs heavily and says, “I don’t know what you _can_ do, meu filho. I don’t like the boy, but you’re bonded. Unless you think it is a bond that can be broken?”

The last part sounds almost hopeful, but Eduardo already knows it’s not that kind of bond. His moonstruck twenty-year-old self was right about Mark--it’s not as satisfying as it should be, knowing that. “No,” he says softly. “No, I don’t think it can.”

“Well,” his father says with a sigh. “Then you will have to make a mends. Do you still… care for him?”

Eduardo cringes at the care in his tone, remembers going home after the dilution and spilling his guts to his father, telling him he’d been sure about Mark, _so sure_ , remembers the way his father hadn’t been able to look at him for months without his expression turning into something sad and so he hadn’t looked at him at all. He takes a deep breath, covers his face with the hand not holding the phone to shield himself from the prying eyes of the donut shop’s lone employee. “I shouldn’t,” he says finally. “I shouldn’t. I’m so angry with him, Pai. I shouldn’t.”

“But you do,” his father says, and it’s not a question, so Eduardo doesn’t bother to confirm it. “Well then you will have to make peace. Talk to him—“

“No, that won’t help,” Eduardo cuts in, and he hears his father sigh briefly before he continues.

“Or talk to yourself. Make _peace_ , Edu. Find a way to forgive him. Otherwise this bond will only hurt you both.”

Eduardo ignores the part of himself that is terrified, asking what happens if he _can’t_ do that, ignores the even worse part that doesn’t _want_ to, and just says, “Okay. Obrigado, Pai. I should go.”

He stays in the donut shop for a long time after he hangs up, jiggling his leg under the table and doing his level best to work through years of anger in just a few hours. It doesn’t work, of course, not completely, but by the time he decides to head back to the hotel, he’s starting to feel like it’s possible. And then, of course, there’s Mark in the hotel room, puffing himself up and trying to refuse Eduardo’s apology. It gets easier after that, because Mark might insist it’s fine, but Eduardo saw the set of his shoulders the night before, sees something now in his face, something vulnerable and sad.

“It won’t happen again,” he promises, and his chest feels full to the brim with how much he means it. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Mark agrees, nodding, looking at Eduardo like he trusts him, and Eduardo smiles helplessly at him, feels his body relax for the first time since he walked into that conference room the day before.

It’s going to be okay. He can do this. He can make peace.


End file.
